(a) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for manipulating a user interface to control in-vehicle equipment by recognizing hand gestures using passenger finger valleys within a vehicle.
(b) Description of the Related Art
Modern vehicles are equipped with many electronic devices for passenger convenience, including a navigation system, a hands-free mobile phone system, and the like, as well as conventional electronic devices such as a radio and an air conditioner.
Conventional in-vehicle electronic devices provide a user interface through assigned buttons, and the use of a touch screen has been developed in recent years. A passenger can manipulate these devices by directly touching the user interfaces with their hands or other objects (e.g., a pen, a stylus, and the like). Since such an operation is based on the passenger's gaze and hand motions, it may hinder safe driving. Accordingly, when the passenger can maintain a wide viewing angle and good posture while operating the electronic devices, safe driving may be ensured. Hence, there is a need for the development of a user interface technology which does not hinder safe driving.
Accordingly, a system has been developed that controls vehicle functions by recognizing images of a passenger's hands using a 3D (three-dimensional) camera (e.g., imaging device) and a webcam. This system controls the vehicle functions without the need for the passenger's field of vision, and is therefore expected to promote safe driving. In particular, the 3D camera delivers depth information, from which poses and 3D motion data can be obtained regardless of hand posture.
However, it is difficult for the webcam to extract hand poses or 3D gestures since the webcam operates on the basic principle of delivering 2D (two-dimensional) information. In a 2D image-based system, feature points can be found based on color and brightness information only, and the feature points are less distinguishable due to external lighting.
The above information disclosed in this section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the invention and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.